This is our traditional request for your main points of feedback about our newest release. Please share your likes, dislikes, suggestions -- all are welcome. But please keep these comments to 100 words or less, and join or create other threads for a more in-depth conversation on a specific topic.

I like the direction GW2 is going with PoF and I think it's brought out some of the best of the game and of the players. Some were ambivalent about mounts being added since they are a familiar MMO feature, but they were implemented in a new and a very fun way with how they interact with the movement of GW2. Main suggestion is to give the Collection tab its own UI as it's becoming more important but harder to navigate now.

Can we PLEASE get some affordable gear from PoF? As a newish player getting gear (exotic at least) is a MASSIVE hassle. I'm talking condi gear especially. I would appreciate some way to get exotic with at least Viper/Sinister selectable stats (if you insist on hiding Griever stats) from vendors for map currency or some other predictable grind (as in NOT RNG) without having to grind crafting on 4 separate characters.

It's getting ridiculous, I'm essentially forced to play power builds because at least I can get zerker stuff from Dungeon/HoT zones. I was really hoping that PoF coming out would mean easier access to HoT stats, I was very disappointed when that was not the case.

PoF was the best experience I've had in an MMORPG in a long time.
The story was well expanded, explored, and executed. Everything was rich with lore and detail. The maps are beautiful, diverse, and pleasant to be in. Love the Weaver, Soulbeast, and Renegade elite specs. The mounts are the best addition to GW 2 so far and have been implemented so well and seamlessly. I love all the surprises, the attention to detail, the humor and ambient life everywhere, the music, the masteries, just EVERYTHING. All of it done so well down to the smallest details.

The only suggestions I have are with the depiction of villains in GW 2. Particularly with the main villain of each major story arc. Mordremoth and Balthazar are unfortunately that cliche, power-hungry, self-flattering, predictable, one-dimensional villain that always says "YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT ME!!!" Zhaitan was done very well, where it didn't need to remind us how powerful it was or taunt us throughout the story. It was just a force of nature and was actually intimidating.

I was surprised to see Balthazar depicted the way he was, and for me at least it certainly discredits him as a choice for a god to choose at character creation for human characters.

Other than that, I am so happy and satisfied with PoF. Thank you Arena Net and all involved.

Mounts are great, they are all I hoped them to be. My suggestions on Mounts would be to make it so that you instantly switch from one mount to another by pushing the appropriate button, without having to dismount first. If you think that this is too powerful during combat, you could disable that in combat and just let people dismount instead of switch when in combat. Also, Bunny could use a bit better control because positioning is so important with it. I feel the start-up acceleration of mounts is at fault here: for the bunny this means that moving tiny amounts is almost impossible. Either you hardly move, or you overshoot. For other Mounts this is not really a problem.

The maps are beautiful and varied. Actually much more diverse then the HoT maps. But they really could use some Meta events next to all the cool stuff that is already there. I feel Mounts are fast enough to cover the maps quickly without needing too many waypoints. However, this could become more of a problem if Meta events were to be implemented. I think Meta events will keep the zones better populated which would also be a win for people who are not so much into Meta events.

Everything is awesome except the fact I want to play the story with my friend and many instances don't give you the chance to do the achievements if you are in another persons story.I hate redoing the story and it's always more fun to do it with someone else.

Mount abilities go very well with the open map layouts.
Challenging but more manageable hero point challenges. YES!
Some creature designs are reasonably robust in combat. (Could use more buffs for disenchanting, but that's just me as a Spellbreaker.)

Would appreciate different icons for repeatable anythings on the map. Being too similar makes it look like they weren't done.

HoT's charging-knockdown AI meta has been replaced with PoF's perma-blind meta. STOP with the constant CC auto attacks.
Finding out I can't spend contracts because I need them for buying mounts was a kick in the shin.

(More to come as I progress, but top-top level feedback? Game is fun, yo.)

Many alts! Handle it!

"A condescending answer might as well not be an answer at all."
-Eloc Freidon.5692

I think both expansions have had a lot of disparity in elite specialization usefulness, uniqueness, and mechanics. I understand different developers have different strengths and weaknesses, and because of that I think the devs should rotate and touch all of the elite specs during development, they would be more consistent and balanced that way.

Story was brilliant!
Maps look nice, but seems there's little reason to revisit most parts of them.
Mob difficulty is a good balance, generally easy but can get into trouble if you're not careful.
Combat detection makes it very frustrating trying to cross a map as you can't always change mounts when you need to, kills the flow of movement.
Lack of map wide metas is a huge dissapointment! There's very little map chat compared to HoT, nothing that needs group cooperation, and no reason to group up for anything other than bounties. Even HPs & MP fights were all easily soloable, shame no group ones.
PoF feels more like a single player DLC rather than an MMO expansion (but still a great single player DLC)

Only change I would suggest is the removal of invisible pathing blockers near certain masteries, replacing them with visible terrain/jump-blocking ledges, etc. I feel invisible walls do injustice to the overall visual richness of PoF and the game at large.

Less than 100 words not doable, sorry. There is too much to say. Of course, you can always skip the "Praise" section and get straight to the criticism.

Praise:

Item mechanics:

unidentified items leave you a choice (to salvage or to open)

left-over event items (trophies) no longer need to be deleted, you can exchange them for karma and other useful stuff at different heart vendors

you don’t lose your equipped (event-related) item when you mount or glide

Mounts:

the mechanics invented for the several mounts are so much fun, I really hope we will see more of it in future content (not more mounts, but further content that makes use of their abilities; of course, adding a horse mount still wouldn't hurt )

great creature design and animations, but that goes for all of PoF’s creatures/monsters/NPCs

Maps:

ideal layout for exploration, engaging and exciting

breathtaking designs (architecture, environment, ambient sounds), including the story instances

enjoyable, atmospheric soundtrack

an event system that doesn’t usually stress you out nor limits your options at any time; also, many events require you to use your brain in order to figure out what to do, which I welcome

finally, there is real adventure to be had during exploration by going everywhere to discover treasure, unlock new collections and simply feel rewarded for taking your time to explore an area (in previous releases, so much potential was constantly wasted, but not this time)

engaging in conversations with NPCs no longer feels pointless and tedious (where you would simply skip through dialogue) but is filled with rich lore, important hints, etc.

wonderful ambient dialogue that often has you stop and listen, making your environment feel “alive”

Story/Writing:

the story is so well written and perfectly paced that I find myself completely immersed in it, excited, surprised, shocked, moved, a whole bandwidth of emotions that good writing evokes in the recipient; I constantly find myself craving for more, impatient to see what happens next (and still am for the rest of the story)

the player character’s personal background finally matters again, though only in small portions ("I was blessed by Lyssa at birth."), so I wish they made more use of it and gave it more depth and significance

the quality of dialogue was mostly superb, the best by far in this game (no more super infantile humor and bad jokes, silly conversations, severe out-of-character behavior, and what have you; the only thing that got on my nerves that way was the childish banter between Canach and Rytlock, and especially Rytlock has become too much of a whiner in PoF)

Miscellaneous:

your brain gets stimulated in so many different ways that you never get bored; be it side quests, Hero Point challenges, Mastery Point missions, and so on; instead of having all the focus primarily on fighting, like it was with most of the previous content, you now have a huge variety of different tasks (kudos!)
.

Criticism/Suggestions:

Item mechanics:

you cannot rely on the color of common (green) and uncommon (blue) unidentified items, as some do contain rare (yellow) items as well

Mounts:

idea: quick mount swap UI button; just like you have two sets of weapons and two pets between which you can swap, give us that option for mounts as well?

please make it possible to activate your respective mount as soon as the enemy is dead or you are no longer being targeted, even when you are still suffering from conditions (the wait time for conditions to expire in such situations is tedious)

please make it possible to activate the Skimmer even while taking damage from sulfur (equal to quicksand, where you can activate it at any time)

dismounting often leaves your character at a different spot than where they were standing before while mounted, which can easily lead to your toon falling off the ledge

dismounting for every action quickly becomes irritating; maybe change to remain mounted when engaging in dialogue, picking up event objects to carry to target, etc.?

make mounts available to your companions in more story missions than just the Forged fortress one

make it possible to switch to the glider (by holding Space) if you accidentally fall off a great height while mounted (so you don’t have to wait until you finally hit the ground, then have to work all the way back up)

Maps:

many mobs have a disturbingly huge aggro range and/or respawn time, making some areas painful to traverse or explore

stop enemies from interrupting dialogue; for instance, I was in a conversation with Defector Basma, but couldn't read her full response, because I had to dodge an AoE attack by a Jacaranda above me (which, once more, leads me to the annoying aggro range)

some events overlap, getting in the way of each other and making it hard to survive unless there are other players around to help you deal with the mobs

you often are forced to fight, whether you want to or not, due to the aforementioned issues

Story/Writing:

even though we had one option to make a seemingly significant choice (between the two factions and neutrality), it turned out to be of no consequence, which was a huge disappointment

although a major improvement to LWS3, the dialogue could still use a little less contemporary wording by the PC and her/his companions (e.g., use “Are you alright?” instead of “You okay?”)

Miscellaneous:

people have been complaining about the difficulty level of some fights; there is a reason I started PoF with my Necromancer first (usually, my first character is my Ranger), because of his high survivability, damage, and elite spec boni (I am not sure it will be as easy with my Ranger...)

Story was avesome. Maps looks great and so wonderful (have tons of screenshots) But......after launch PoF most of map are empty..... i am done story and some collection, take all mounts and nothing to do more for me. its sad but true. Bounty boards is boring. There is nothing more to do in the new locations

@Ashantara.8731 said:
Less than 100 words not doable, sorry. There is too much to say. Of course, you can always skip the "Praise" section and get straight to the criticism.

Praise:

Item mechanics:

unidentified items leave you a choice (to salvage or to open)

left-over event items (trophies) no longer need to be deleted, you can exchange them for karma and other useful stuff at different heart vendors

you don’t lose your equipped (event-related) item when you mount or glide

Mounts:

the mechanics invented for the several mounts are so much fun, I really hope we will see more of it in future content (not more mounts, but further content that makes use of their abilities; of course, adding a horse mount still wouldn't hurt )

great creature design and animations, but that goes for all of PoF’s creatures/monsters/NPCs

Maps:

ideal layout for exploration, engaging and exciting

breathtaking designs (architecture, environment, ambient sounds), including the story instances

enjoyable, atmospheric soundtrack

an event system that doesn’t usually stress you out nor limits your options at any time; also, many events require you to use your brain in order to figure out what to do, which I welcome

finally, there is real adventure to be had during exploration by going everywhere to discover treasure, unlock new collections and simply feel rewarded for taking your time to explore an area (in previous releases, so much potential was constantly wasted, but not this time)

engaging in conversations with NPCs no longer feels pointless and tedious (where you would simply skip through dialogue) but is filled with rich lore, important hints, etc.

wonderful ambient dialogue that often has you stop and listen, making your environment feel “alive”

Story/Writing:

the story is so well written and perfectly paced that I find myself completely immersed in it, excited, surprised, shocked, moved, a whole bandwidth of emotions that good writing evokes in the recipient; I constantly find myself craving for more, impatient to see what happens next (and still am for the rest of the story)

the player character’s personal background finally matters again, though only in small portions ("I was blessed by Lyssa at birth."), so I wish they made more use of it and gave it more depth and significance

the quality of dialogue was mostly superb, the best by far in this game (no more super infantile humor and bad jokes, silly conversations, severe out-of-character behavior, and what have you; the only thing that got on my nerves that way was the childish banter between Canach and Rytlock, and especially Rytlock has become too much of a whiner in PoF)

Miscellaneous:

your brain gets stimulated in so many different ways that you never get bored; be it side quests, Hero Point challenges, Mastery Point missions, and so on; instead of having all the focus primarily on fighting, like it was with most of the previous content, you now have a huge variety of different tasks (kudos!)
.

Criticism/Suggestions:

Item mechanics:

you cannot rely on the color of common (green) and uncommon (blue) unidentified items, as some do contain rare (yellow) items as well

Mounts:

idea: quick mount swap UI button; just like you have two sets of weapons and two pets between which you can swap, give us that option for mounts as well?

please make it possible to activate your respective mount as soon as the enemy is dead or you are no longer being targeted, even when you are still suffering from conditions (the wait time for conditions to expire in such situations is tedious)

please make it possible to activate the Skimmer even while taking damage from sulfur (equal to quicksand, where you can activate it at any time)

dismounting often leaves your character at a different spot than where they were standing before while mounted, which can easily lead to your toon falling off the ledge

dismounting for every action quickly becomes irritating; maybe change to remain mounted when engaging in dialogue, picking up event objects to carry to target, etc.?

make mounts available to your companions in more story missions than just the Forged fortress one

make it possible to switch to the glider (by holding Space) if you accidentally fall off a great height while mounted (so you don’t have to wait until you finally hit the ground, then have to work all the way back up)

Maps:

many mobs have a disturbingly huge aggro range and/or respawn time, making some areas painful to traverse or explore

stop enemies from interrupting dialogue; for instance, I was in a conversation with Defector Basma, but couldn't read her full response, because I had to dodge an AoE attack by a Jacaranda above me (which, once more, leads me to the annoying aggro range)

some events overlap, getting in the way of each other and making it hard to survive unless there are other players around to help you deal with the mobs

you often are forced to fight, whether you want to or not, due to the aforementioned issues

Story/Writing:

even though we had one option to make a seemingly significant choice (between the two factions and neutrality), it turned out to be of no consequence, which was a huge disappointment

although a major improvement to LWS3, the dialogue could still use a little less contemporary wording by the PC and her/his companions (e.g., use “Are you alright?” instead of “You okay?”)

Miscellaneous:

people have been complaining about the difficulty level of some fights; there is a reason I started PoF with my Necromancer first (usually, my first character is my Ranger), because of his high survivability, damage, and elite spec boni (I am not sure it will be as easy with my Ranger...)

Took two days off for a four-day expansion weekend--well-spent. Maps are beautiful. Mobs are interesting-- a couple of mechanics (invuln. to ranged?!) had me yelling "those kittens!" (affectionately). Being forced to switch my longbow ranger to melee weapons in PvE once in a while should improve my PvP skill.

Callbacks to GW1 are great--loved that "didn't this used to be above ground?" feeling. Story overall was a good experience, though I thought

Vlast was under-utilized. The refrigerator is no place to put a dragon.

Great story, great maps. Despite lots of players, the maps feel a little empty. Also, Deadeye needs some work- rifle is practically useless at the moment. Starting to wonder how much replayability there will be, too, in terms of revisiting maps.

Map design and layouts are breathtaking. Mount acquisition was reasonable and accessible. Story (so far) is enjoyable and engaging. Mounts need a 2nd dye channel to customize better. Solo exploration can be painful and frustrating due to dense mobs or quick respawn. Love almost all of what I’ve experienced so far.

From the comments above, I might be the only one ... but I really hate mounts. Overall - for me - it feels like the mounts are just "kit-like" mastery abilities, what makes them way worse than the HoT mastery stuff. Furthermore, their abilities are plain boring, raptor is just "jump far", bugs bunny is "jump high" and so on. Since they are kit-like, it makes them really annoying to use, I especially felt this when I played a couple of maps for HP or champion runs after finishing the story. The sheer amount of how often you have to switch mounts, get demounted our can't mount up cause infght, is completely destroying mounts for me.

Just as an example (yeye I know more than 100 words now). If the HoT masteries would be implemented like the mounts, you would first have to "mount up" to your glider before gliding, then unequip the glider and finally re-equip the "mushroom jump tool" to use a mushroom and so on. (would that be fun?) Also in HoT you could still glide and use other masteries in combat. I think you only were thrown from the glider when taking damage (not in- or out- combat related).

However
1) a way to take your alts to the expansion without doing the story instance for each one or requiring a gemstore purchase is needed. The NPC at the ship in Lions Arch could have an option to send a char there once the first story instance has been done.
2) those large empty maps feel empty of content. Maybe a gizmo that a player can have to show all currently active events on the map? The maps could use Harathi type chained events leading to an area boss. The events now seem disconnected from each other. There's no feeling of epic getting together to beat a story line boss.

Got most of the collection achievements, 257 mastery level (all mounts and masteries), all maps with 100% map completion, all mastery insights, completed all events, killed all bounties (legendary and champion). Can't speak much about the new elite spec, but the weaver. Also, haven't played PvP or WvW yet but these would req more than 100 words and I end here coz I'm already at 200 xD

What I like:
1. Maps are beautiful and interesting. Not exactly multi-layer but still interesting.
2. Mounts are very well done and perfectly fit the new maps. Love everything in them.
3. The story was good.
4. Unidentified gear and bounties are good additions.
5. Open ending.

What I don't like:
1. Bounties are a good addition but shouldn't be a replacement to more challenging meta events. There should be such events which don't gate the map so everyone can be happy. Good example - Tangled Depths.
2. The overall difficulty in PoF is super easy and not challenging at all.
3. No world boss/es.
4. The whole expansion is solo or small group oriented which is bad for an MMO IMO...
5. Again, NO EPIC META EVENTS!
6. Ele will wear his staff forever. The sword feels very weak.

Wishlist:
Everything that kills me should be nerfed
Remove all time gates - I play more than some people yet I receive the same rewards per day/week (PvP/WvW tickets etc)
ANET developments/events and everything else should be in a schedule with the time I play

I like the mounts dont know about the griffon though.
I really hope we are looking into add condition defense attribute like armor/toughness. So, that classes that are tanky can have other options then just condi cleanse builds in pvp. I believe that will be a work in the right direction. Yes, I know spell breaker has been created, but i don't believe that having a spec on one class to fight the problem solves the problem , but ill make a post on the topic when i become more educated about the problem in whole.

-Deadeye feels good, but the results point to it being Dead-weight. The damage for mechanical investment is just not there. In addition to this Fire For Effect has an application range of like 240, which is like melee range. If its supposed to hit TEN targets and have an impact on raids I would consider increasing this to 600-900.

-Mounts are awesome. -> Mount Skins.

-Classes are fun -> Make class specific boons hit 10 players across the board so we can see more of them in raids. ex. Empowered Allies, Spotter. A lot of them dont compete well with the existing class utility.

However
1) a way to take your alts to the expansion without doing the story instance for each one or requiring a gemstore purchase is needed. The NPC at the ship in Lions Arch could have an option to send a char there once the first story instance has been done.

Yes... this! I don't want to do this story over and over and over. There's no reason. It's just a tedious drag and time-sink. Otherwise, I loved this expansion. Please expedite these waypoint unlocks that everyone has been talking about!!

Overall PoF is an amazing expansion. The story was really nice, the maps are beautiful. NPC dialogue is really interesting and funny.
I LOVE the kites from the casino! They're so pretty. Will there be more in the future?
My biggest critique so far would be the density of mobs / their attack range. I never had any problems with this in the core game or in HoT, but in the desert it can be frustrating if you're trying to activate a mount while being attacked from every side. But all in all it's been a great expansion so far!

Maps: Freaking IncredibleArtwork: Amazing. Keep finding awesome things.Story: Engaging and flowed nicely. Fun instances if you are the commander. If you are not…Mounts: Jury is still out for me.Tihark Orchard: SuckedGarden of Seborhin: OMG! Incredible!Kodash Bazaar: Great job. Wish it was easier to explore.Junundu, Jacaranda, and Iboga: Too small.GW1 Awakened: Where are they? Undead don’t go “extinct.”Hydra: Finally! Great revamp.Djinn: Love them! And all four elements! Again, great revamp.Places: Can’t tell you how much it means to recognize places from GW. Thank you.

Happy with the expansion overall and love the mounts. The story is fantastic and Im happy with the progression of the new elites ... so far I have Firebrand and Soulbeast. As a solo player this was important to me. I think Anet did an amazing job! Thank you so much for this

Maps are really cool and so it's the exploration part. Mounts was better than expected, and masteries are simple and nice.Story is good ( happy for canach return ).World events would have been nice to me, but personally i didn't dedicate time to PvE farm and just enjoyed maps and exploration ( i need domains of Vabbi to complete all the maps ).

The things i really didn't appreciate is the griffon mount, as gold sink and mechanics, and the low number of WP.
But i will probably play only LS/SPvP/WvW, so it won't be a big deal.

It was indeed worth the money, as HoT.

edit: i forget... hearts are repetable, ok... but why many of em are slow as 10/15 min? like the one "help the living and the deads at the necropoli" ... please consider to tone down em.

Good;
*Amazing, entertaining, incredibly well done x-pack.
* As well e-spec (soulbeast at least) storytelling, enviroment, exploration, the feeling of being on a different continent, Mounts.... most elements are 10/10!!!
* There are no annoying massive meta-events! There is enough to do anyway!
* This x-pack Will keep me busy for many, many hours!!

Bad:

Only humans got lots of faces, hairs and beards (racial feature non the less!!) with this x-pack. Whatabout the other races!!!!???? We want New, Good looking things too.

I liked the maps and the mounts. The specializations are ok-ish. Music was unremarkable, in comparison to HoT.

What I really hated is that you effectively eliminated a big part of the traditional GW1 lore.

Creating a world that is traditionally heavily influenced by gods and then putting these gods out of every reach is just wrong. It is also a disgracefull departure. Now they really left humans alone - willingly, hardcore. They even left their most trusted subjects in the afterlife ... That is as if you kill off every god in the Forgotten Realms or Elder Scrolls. Suddenly the lore becomes bleak. Why you are so afraid of your own creation is far beyond me. Meddling gods do not threaten, but enrich the world and the lore. I hoped for the gods to be more palpable in the future. Now that the opposite happened, I lost much interest in this franchise. Disappointing, really.

I really, really like PoF. The maps beg to be explored, it has those little out of the way spots that are there for no reason other than to be there. I like how it's people have different struggles and different goals than those in Tyria. If I could change anything it would be; give dialog to more NPCs in the various settlements, most of them have absolutely nothing to say about their unfortunate situation and to address the aggro distance/spawn rate of some of the mobs, I'd like to have time between encounters to explore the beautiful maps you have created.

When a man lies he murders some part of the world – Paul Gerhardt
Just so we’re clear, I’m a solo player – Kirito
Live, Laugh, Love Kill ZhaitanMordremothBalthazarJokoKralkatorrik my desire for the Skyscale – DedTreeJig

OK here goes. [SPOILER ALERT]
First lets start with a disclaimer. I don't generally post things and don't keep up with the forums, but I felt I needed to get something off my chest. I finally finished the Path of Fire story plot and it's both good and bad. First 2 arcs were amazing. The pacing was decent the story was progressing fine and I actually had to work to progress the story. The 3rd arc felt kind of rushed ... to put it mildly. It's almost insulting to be honest. The whole part about convincing lower ranked military personnel that they need to follow the orders of a superior officer made me absolutely lose all connection from the entire plot up to that point. And after/because of that I started noticing stuff I had disregarded up to that point like :
1. There was no real way to interact with your guildmates from Dragon's Watch and in general their part was just to stand about and fill out some time talking and ultimately being insignificant. I finished the story 10 min ago and already forgot all about what Canach even did in all of the expansion. Kas had a purpose in the last arc to change my appearance. Rythlock gave me the sword. Canach ... what the hell did Canach even do, he kind of stood around being Canachy all the time? Taimi was just some random noise in the background and the rest of Dragon's Watch didn't seem interested in the supposed end of the world, cause they didn't even try to do anything. Generally it's all just the PC doing everything alone while listening to Canach and Rythlock talk at the beginning of every quest line without giving any kind of useful input. 2. Vlast was underrepresented and Aurene was only ever present in the last fight, outside of a cinematic in another fight.
3. All other story arcs so far made the PC move around the world - go to the Priory, go to Lions Arch, seek guidance from the Pale Tree, look for information somewhere on a different part of the world, go to some random island, etc. This entire expansion takes place in 3 areas which makes it feel insignificant or should I say inconsequential up until the final reveal after you kill Balthazar even compared to Living World stories. From the whole thing I learned that Rythlock is WEAK, cause he cant kill anything with his sword to save his life, while I dropped mobs in 2 hits.
4. The whole story felt like it's a big set up for an expansion only it is the expansion and costs 30€ and all it really does is fill the role of Living World season 2. What i mean is LWS2 did for the Mordremoth arc of the full game story what PoF did for the Kralkatoric part and PoF is about as big as the LWS2 part.

Now moving away from the many issues I have with the plot line:
General likes:
1. New specializations. For me at least that alone is worth the money for the expansion. Will surely make PvP and WvW more interesting. Can't wait to get into it with my other champs.
2. Extra maps and more content to explore and just wander around. Always good to have (after you actually put more content in).
No third thing really I think that about covers the likes.

General dislikes:
1. Materials I cant store in material bank. Big F....ING problem there guys. I've been at war with the inventory since I started the game and this is almost a tipping point, it's almost unbearable.
2. Map design. I don't mean the actual design as much as just the fact that we have large maps and little of any way-points. I get it you want to make us use the mounts, but it's just punishing after the initial fun from the mounts fades, I wont comment on the maps further, because I generally don't like desert maps, they are just to bland for me, but I made my point I hope. The maps are flat. No layers, for all the problems some people had with HoT maps I enjoyed the multi-layer thing, this feels more 2012 GW2 with flat WoW-like maps.
3. Which brings me to the 3rd problem. Mounts, good spin on the general mount systems of other games to have different mounts do different things and so one, BUT and maybe I'm the idiot here. The current way to change mounts is driving me up the walls nuts. There is no fluid way to switch mounts, the fact i need to click the arrow above the small icon shortcut is ridiculous and it literally makes me sick to my stomach every time i need to do it. I cringe so hard every time i need to switch from raptor to skimmer I've just Alt+F4 the game because of it at least 5 times so far. It's quite possibly the most annoying mechanic I've seen in any game ever. I get actual heartburn thinking of it.
4. There's really not much to do in the new maps as far as I can figure. I have spent so far around 15-16h in the maps just running around and finishing the main story and so far I saw no META map-wide events or anything remotely resembling a World Boss. You really need to fix that. How can Kralkatorik be kitten all over the crystal desert and there not be a single big Minion spawning every 3-4h to wreak havoc and make people just visit the areas.
5. The whole bounty system has a major flaw. All the above dislikes make the maps not fully populated most of the time and the HP of bounty champions is too high to be brought down by 5-7 people in the designated time unless they all start from the beginning and are not new players (have optimized gear/skills). I just not even bother to stop and waste time fighting them anymore.
6. There are no new stuff from the old kind. No new instances, Raids or Fractals from what I saw. And I expected something like the Auric skins but I don't think there is any(please correct me if I'm wrong), there are just the generic weapons no epic looking things. I expected after putting Balthazar down I'd get some flaming monster of a weapon choice but I got a boring back thingy that is so-so.
7. After I finished HoT and any of the other story plots I reran them with my other 6 champions. I dread the idea of putting myself through the giant mostly empty and boring desert maps again (that could just be me though).
8. There is really no point to get anyone else involved in your play-through any of the PoF maps. It's just a solo experience and that's just not very MMO-like. The Hero Challenges aren't really challenging and are all (as far as I saw) normal mobs with slightly more HP, no Champions, no real challenge.
9. Flying. There is none. No soaring in the skies. Everything is firmly grounded. You wont be gliding much, because you are forced to use mounts. Mounts in the areas literally killed the glider and gutted it's creator, then hung them both to dry in the desert sun. I feel stuck to the ground, there are no mushrooms, no wind streams, no high cliffs. It's all just one big flat desert with some buildings. Kind of makes it boring to play in my book.
10. The mount conditional skill. The thing that pops up when you ride the Raptor where you throw a chain to bring down a flying mob or pull a veteran Skritt to the ground. That skill has some serious range consistency problems. Also on Necro it reappears after the 1st use if you go in a shroud. It's generally a buggy skill. I cant figure the range it has. Sometimes i need to be on top of the Skritt to use it. Sometimes I can use it from really far away. Out of range of all skills.

I think I made this long enough so I'll leave it at this.
PS: Make a faster/more fluid mount change way. HINT You have many empty skill slots when mounted HINT use them HINTHINT*. PLEASE! The mount switching is killing me!

Appreciate the lack of waypoints, makes the maps less themepark and a bit more adventure.
Mixed feelings about instantly unlocking Elite Specialization. Balance of enemies good, challenging but manageable when soloing.
Nice throwbacks to old lore. Unfortunately so far nowhere the original feeling of the Crystal Desert (deserted, harsh).
Story started out nice but pacing accelerated too much after 'Facing the truth'. Dislike forced exploration for story continuation (The Sacrifice, Way Forward). Would have appreciated character / profession specific dialogue / mechanics. First combat in 'Beast of War' disappointing, should be more massive.
(Amount of) collections looks promising, dislike the 'no-lore-until-complete' principal.

The movement on the mounts is disjointed. I'm used to my charcater being able to stop and turn on a dime and the mounts do not. Its slightly nauseating riding them.

We could certainly use more waypoints. Running on a mount or running on foot means were still running to get where the fun is. I do not find running to be fun at all. Those who do like to run can always do so, those who do not are not given the option.